Chapter 16
Grace
I’ve been granted a reprieve. Nate practically ran to answer the work call, which gives me time to consider how I’m going to handle today without the distraction of him.
I’m tempted to look through the closet first, to see exactly how far his obsessive preparation has gone, but showering alone is more important for now.
I could have taken control of the situation when I woke up in Nate’s arms this morning.
He slept so deeply, let me go so easily that I’m sure I could have taken his keys and left.
It’s true now, too. I could put on the beautiful clothes—a maroon merino tunic and a pair of black leggings, complete with bra, camisole, and undies, all in the correct sizes—and head out.
I could plug my phone in and call a car. I could run.
But I find that all I want is a quiet shower.
The bathroom is white on white, with a few beachy accents tying into the bedroom’s sea glass motif: a jar of shells on the window sill, light brown towels, and a macrame tapestry on the retaining wall.
There’s an antique clawfoot bathtub under a clerestory window and a modern shower on the opposite wall.
Somehow, it all works perfectly. I make a note to ask Nate if he put together the master suite decor on his own.
If an interior designer was involved, I need a name so the rest of the house can have the same treatment.
My breathing stutters as I recognise the train of my own thoughts.
Even as I’m aching from what he did to me last night, part of me is decorating and planning, spinning a future where this house becomes my project. I force myself to remember what he did, but that doesn’t lead to the reaction I want. I should feel fear. Disgust. Horror, even. But I don’t.
I step into the shower, suppressing all thoughts, feeling my joints release a bit of tension under the hot spray.
Time to check in with my body. The air hunger that was a shadow yesterday has congealed into a black hole, and my joints are tender without being painful.
Normally, my stomach hurts after each meal, but this morning I’m fine.
I want to pretend that Nate knows nothing about my health, and that his keeping a gluten-free kitchen is another side of his pathological need to fix me—but it might not be unfounded.
Maybe this Dr Eileen can help me see this a bit more objectively.
I take an everything shower. I don’t want to dwell on any of Nate’s so-called ‘aftercare’ enough to consider what he might have missed.
I find a bottle of shampoo and scrub my scalp, trying to erase his touches, knowing it’s useless.
What we did last night cannot be erased, and every interaction this morning promised more. And I don’t trust myself to say no.
My staying here might as well be a declaration of total acceptance. Doctor’s appointments. The house I’ve always wanted. And, when he can’t help but step away, brief moments to grieve. All of that and more, I have no doubt, but at the cost of something I don’t want to name.
I take as deep a breath as my lungs will allow, and force myself to think of Nick.
It’s been a day since he left the house for the last time, leaving me as sneakily as I left Nate this morning.
I picture Nick walking out of our townhouse, probably saying a loving good morning to Mother on his way out, then running along the Esplanade to absorb the early morning sun while he got his kilometres in.
But he never got to the beach. Or—was it that he never got back to the road from the beach?
I don’t even know whether Nick got his run before he died, or if he was hit before. Constable Tim might have told me—he would have, wouldn’t he? But I don’t know. I didn’t even get to see Nick one last time. And now, when I try to imagine his face, all I can see is Nate.
I turn the shower off, panting in the steam.
There’s little worse than combining air hunger with a panic attack, but that’s exactly where this is headed if I don’t calm down.
I wrap a towel around my body despite the suds on my skin, then lean against the counter, staring at the wide-eyed woman in the mirror.
“You are fine,” I tell her. “Things are messed up. But you are fine.”
It’s what Nick would say. Mother, too.
You’re fine. Don’t pretend you’re not.
I imagine both of them telling me to fill my lungs with air. As easy as breathing, right?
Just breathe, Graciously…
I am breathing, fast and hard. The towel is damp, the soap cloying on my skin. Stomach, joints, eyes all ping with pain as oxygen fails me.
Orange, orange, orange…
The ugly colour I chose for moments like this. All orange, all around me. If I had to quantify it, the pain would be a ten, the number and colour filling me until I’m sobbing without sound.
My mother’s voice rises like steam, condensation I can never disperse: The doctors say air hunger is just in your head.
That means you’re choosing this, Graciously.
If you’d just calm down, you could breathe again.
No? Pass out, then. Go on. I’ll be here when you wake up, with something for you to eat.
“Fuck—you—Mother,” I gasp, shaking with the effort of staying present. I have just enough oxygen to avoid passing out. “Fuck you—and your food.”
I get the words out, then take a scraping breath that hurts as much as it helps.
My head clears slowly, Mother’s voice quieting as the bathroom comes into focus.
Another breath, slow and purposeful. It doesn’t fill my lungs, but it’s enough for me to sit up.
A cough tries to escape, but I catch it, holding my mouth shut.
The last thing I want is Nate coming in here.
More breaths. I count them slowly—two beats in, four beats out.
Again and again until I can manage four beats in and eight beats out.
Oxygen rushes to my brain, orange transmutes to blue, lightening with each additional count.
Nick, my mind whispers, showing me his face again.
This time I see it properly, an image of my husband at his best, when his eyes sparkled with tender humour.
But my stomach clenches with grief: he only ever looked at Mother that way, towards the end.
“Fuck you both,” I whisper, then I take a long, filling breath and stand up.
I finish showering as fast as I can, still suppressing the urge to cough.
I dry myself off and get dressed, listening for Nate’s footfalls as I continue my breathing exercises.
Nothing. If he’s leaving me alone for longer than the ten minutes he promised, I’m going to take advantage.
I explored the house before breakfast; now I want to see the grounds. The beach.
I turn off the bathroom fan, listening to the waves.
They’re like breathing, easy and slow. I follow the sound into the bedroom and open the curtains.
I smile. Where I figured there would be a wide window, there’s a sliding door opening onto the first of a triad of floating decks, leading down the lawn to a cliff’s edge.
I can see the railing already, which beckons me downwards, to the stairs Nate built for me, down to where he collected seaglass.
The door sighs open. Instantly, the bedroom feels like part of the outdoors.
There’s a rattan lounge set on one deck, and two sun loungers on the next.
Beyond all of that—the vast expanse of the ocean.
I walk towards the cliff, my eyes already on the distant horizon, dark blue like the rim of an iris.
Spring is turning towards summer, and the warm northerly winds sweep across the ocean, kissing my cheeks when I turn my face.
I haven’t been to the beach in months, and it seems like Nate’s ten-minute call will last far longer than he predicted.
The staircase is impressive, given the height of the cliffs; it would have taken as much engineering to build this as it would to build a pier directly over a tumultuous sea.
As I descend, the cove rises around me, rugged rock and waving seagrass.
At the bottom, the ocean greets me with a purr, the sound building within the cove, echoed by a distant bark from above—Shep, staring down at me from the cliff’s edge.
“Come, boy!” I shout, laughing when he does his signature caper before heading down the stairs.
He gives me a shoulder block for a greeting, almost knocking me over, then he bolts across the sand.
I take off my shoes and follow the dog towards the water’s edge, lifting my face to the sun.
My nose fills with sea air and the last of my air hunger dissipates.
I smell salt. I close my eyes, smiling. The sea is in its retreat, the tide going out, but always with the promise of coming back.
Shep nudges me and I kneel down to give him a pat. That’s when I see the damp-darkened sand: pieces of sea glass sit within the tips of V-shaped rivulets.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, picking up the closest piece. It’s triangular and bright orange, an uncommon colour for sea glass.
I should hate it, but I don’t.
It goes into the pocket of my merino tunic, and I pick up another, this one bottle green.
Shep huffs impatiently and heads into the surf, clearly keen on a swim.
He splashes about while I collect more glass, the sun warming me gently even as my feet get cold in the wet sand.
I could stay here for hours, finding treasure after treasure, colour after colour.